Happy Birthday-The Rest of the Story

By Dick Martin

Happy Birthday!

Do you remember what you were doing one week after your 19th birthday? Charles (Chuck) Dawes does!  In a scene you won’t see in the movies, Chuck and 65 of his colleagues were surrendering to the German Army in a farmhouse in France in November of 1944, less than a month after entering WWII at Marseilles, France.  After days of being subjected to artillery fire, Chuck and his unit and some medical personnel found a farmhouse to take refuge for the night.  During the night, Chuck and his colleagues were taken prisoner by the German Army.  Were they the survivors of a frontal assault by the German Army on the farmhouse or were Chuck’s guards overwhelmed by the Germans.  No, a polite German officer knocked on the farmhouse door, where the Americans were sleeping and asked them to surrender or he threatened to grenade the farmhouse.  At that point Chuck and the rest of the group were lined up and marched to a German prison camp.

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